


Tonight

by CyborgV2



Series: Tonight [2]
Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Post-Book 12: Changes, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:16:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29851743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyborgV2/pseuds/CyborgV2
Summary: They weren't even friends so why is John crying. Damn it!Follow up from today
Relationships: Harry Dresden/Johnny Marcone
Series: Tonight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193378
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Tonight

This was Johns favorite part of the day. Not Gentleman Johnny, that part of him had already retired for the night. He sat curled in an armchair, looking deep into the fire that danced in the hearth of his bedroom. Fireplaces were a rarity in modern houses –particularly in bedrooms. Usually, the upkeep was more trouble than it was worth. But Gard had insisted that they put one in. The threshold in any of his houses were weak. As a precaution from the threat his mortal enemies posed, he shifted house randomly. Consequently, no house of his became a home. That was the shift in category that was required for a threshold to form. A threshold was a form of completely natural protection, that would keep his supernatural enemies at bay.

Sure, Gard could (and did) put up some wards, but without a threshold to tie them to, they would be weak. The solution was a fireplace in each of his residences –spelled so the smoke didn’t show his enemies where he was located each night. There was a reason hearth and home were synonyms. People used to gather around fires. Those fires had kept away the monsters in the dark, long before threshing was a thing that required holding.

So, every night, in the residence he resided in, he would light the fire in his hearth. It had become a tradition of his to watch the flames die down. The flames fed his wards, creating a place of safety for the night. It also, though he loth to admit it, let him relax. There was a subtle unclenching of his muscles watching that fire. A bone deep certainty that here he was safe. John thought that that may be a subtle form of magic in itself.

Occasionally, like tonight, when he needed to find peace with his thoughts he brought a single sheet of crisp white paper and pen, from the home office down the hall way. He had also grabbed a hard cover book from the bookshelf that was next to the fire. John often read as the hearth burnt down. But today he would use the book to lean on as he wrote. It was a warm night and the heat from the fire was getting close to unbearable. 

He placed the blank sheet, pen and book down on the side table beside the chair, uncurled and stretched. Unhurriedly he wandered over to the window and opened it to let a breeze in. He looked out over a Chicago suburb. This safehouse was on a slight rise and as an advantage of being on the second floor he had quite a good view. He took a deep breath, held it till he felt the very start of the desire to breathe, and let it out through his mouth. Feeling more relaxed, he stalked back across the room.

It was time to think about it. 

The chair in front of the fire he curled back up in, was one of only a few things in his life that he allowed to be soft and slightly ratty. Perhaps that was it, Dresden had a deep love for things with a texture to them, a history. Maybe he had brought the castle and designed it for Dresden. And it was designed with Dresden in mind, all be it subconsciously. It wasn’t just the height of the doorways, that was justifiable, John was not a short man, Mr Hendriks even less so. But leaving the sub-basement untouched, the rugs along the hallways and places that his large cat and mammoth of a dog would enjoy. John was not in the habit of lying to himself. He had designed the castle with Dresden in mind.

He arranged the paper so that he could write on it, leaning on the hard covered book. And wrote down the first bullet point  
‘-Designed the Castle for Dresden, why?  
-Denial?’  
Dresden was gone, sure no body had been found, but with the amount of blood found, even Dresden couldn’t survive that. Though now John had accepted that, Harry would survive or come back as a ghost to haunt him just to be contrary. His mouth flickered upwards at that. John had in the past, admitted that he found Harry’s antics to be slightly more amusing than annoying. 

But he didn’t deny that Harry was in fact dead. John’s investigation was proof enough of that, the blood had been his and there was more than enough. He crossed denial off his list.

He looked at his hearth for a while longer pondering the question. Why? He had brought the land in anger. He had thought it was revenge on Harry and his incapability of leaving any building of his untouched by fire, and his utter unremorsefulness when they burned. But those were antics and had he not just admitted that they were amusing. Sure, rebuilding an office or gun deal was a pain but he hadn’t truly been angry at Harry himself for a while. 

But he had brought the land and castle angry at Dresden he remembered that much, but if not for his roles in the property damage then what?  
‘-Angry at Dresden’ made the list. Normally John’s writing was exceptionally neat and cursive. But here in the light of his hearth he didn’t bother. His writing had dissolved into a scrawl that honestly would not be legible to anyone, including him. But John knew what it said and writing it down was more of a way to order his thoughts than any other reason.

Angry at him for what though? He wasn’t here, John realised. Harry had been meant to stop him, to yell at him for taking his stuff, his life, his home. But Harry had never busted through the doors, he was meant to. Damn it! John looked in horror at his list. Denial and anger that Harry was gone. He was grieving, he knew the stages of grief.

The next was bargaining. Is that what he had done with the furnishings of the castle? A deal with the deceased Harry. That when he came back, he would have a home? That what remained of his home would be untouched if he just came and demanded it back. 

John snarled and crumpled the barely used bit of paper. It was his reason, damn him to hell. What right did Harry Blackstone Copperfeild Dresden have to make John Marcone grieve. They were enemies, that sometimes aligned, granted, but they were not friends. John had no right to grieve. They were not FRIENDS. Hell, they were so not friends they were in the negative friendship zone. Enemies. 

Yes, they were enemies, but hate was a strong feeling. The absence still would hurt. That made sense, all he had to do was wait it out. He had grieved before. It was only a matter of time till he arrived at acceptance. Less time than normal even, because Dresden was an enemy and he did not particularly care about the man.  
John placed the book and pen down on the side table, calmly rose with the screwed-up paper in hand and took a couple of steps towards the fire. It was bad business to leave evidence around that proved his humanity. With half his mind on tomorrow, he chucked the bit of paper towards the flames. It missed. Bouncing off the mantle and laying innocuously on the stones in front of the flames.

“god damn it” john whispered staring at the bit of paper like it had personally offended him. He lined up his foot to kick it into the flame. A sharp pain raced through his big toe. Regardless of how many bullets you have taken, a stubbed toe still hurts like a bitch. ‘Damn it, damn it, damn it’ John said quite thankful that no one was around to see him hop up and down. Like that action would some how remove the pain. 

John glared at the peace of paper that flicked in the fire light. Once the immediate pain had subsided to a throb. He placed his foot on the floor and lent to pick up the bit of paper. A tightness bubbled up his throat and exploded. 

Now I’ll let you in on a little secret, nobody over the age of ten has ever cried over spilt milk. Or indeed a mobster over a piece of paper that absolutely refused to do the gosh darn sensible thing and burn like it was supposed to. It was rather a lot of little things building up. Rising the stress levels, until one tiny little thing sets it off. And suddenly a toughened mobster –who had been tortured by fallen angels— is crying over a little bit of paper that WILL. NOT. BURN.

And that is exactly what happened as he touched the bit of paper. That normal bit of paper brought a mobster to tears. Clutching at the bit of paper he fell to his knees and started sobbing. The kind of tears that shake your hole body and make it near impossible to breathe through.  
“Harry Dresden was meant to be mine.”  
And then he went and got himself killed  
“damn him”  
John moved between speaking out loud and in his head. There was no one there to listen but the flames.  
It was not rational what he was saying, Harry was hardly to blame. No one ever was rational when they were crying so hard their nose starts to fill. Though emotions are not rational either. Perhaps that was the purpose of crying like this. Get the irrational thoughts out into the air, the subconscious so bothered by life it pushed its way into your tears.

“I’ll kill him, that motherfucking wizard,”  
John paused for another racking sob. Moving from kneeling on his knees to laying on his side on the carpet. Cradling the scrunched-up bit of paper to his chest as he curled up in front of the fire like a big cat.  
“who the hell said he was allowed to die. I had plans.”  
John had given up all his plans for the Wizard at their first meeting but damn it he was meant to live. John lay there sobbing for another few minutes. As he calmed slightly, you must calm eventually when you are sobbing like that or you will starve yourself of oxygen. John stared at the flames in the hearth the closest thing he was ever going to have to a home, until only the occasional sob ran through his body.

What did it say about him that he saw Harry and home as a fire? John remembered the den that had been part of his soulgaze with Harry. Protected by the wildfire. He was jealous he realised. Jealous of those that Harry had allowed into his heart and at the small contained pleasantly warm hearth within the den. He wanted that forest fire to protect him too. He wanted to be invited into Harry’s life to share the warmth of his hearth. And someone took that chance from him. 

Tomorrow, with the clarity of a clear mind and rational thought, Gentleman Johnny Marcone would look back at his thoughts and wince. Was he seriously saying that he wanted to move into Dresden’s house and his life? Marcone was under no illusions that Harry would have wanted anything to do with him.  
But there, in the fire light, John spent an hour; begging, pleading, praying, to whoever would listen. That he would give up anything, his life, his money, Harry’s castle. If Harry would just come, take the castle from him.

John fell asleep there, in front of the fire, fondling a bit of screwed up paper with 10 words of illegible writing.  
Tomorrow he would start discreetly looking into the death of Dresden. To figure out who had taken Chicago’s Wizard away from them. And add any changes to the castle to make it practical, in particular analysing all the things that had been put into the castle to make it Harry’s Castle. John did not lie to him self and Harry was dead. If he partially thought that just to goad Harry into responding well that was tomorrow’s problem.


End file.
